The Only Crypto Story You Need? A Response to Matt Levine’s The Crypto Story
A wide-ranging discussion of why defenses of crypto don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Read more...Category Archives: Currencies
FTX: New Ex-Enron CEO Finds “Complete Absence of Trustworthy Financial Information,” $3.3 Billion Loans to SBF, Customer Deposits Not Recorded on Balance Sheets; Confirms Software Backdoors, Auto-Deleted Communications
FTX is an even bigger mess than someone with a creative streak might have imagined.
Read more...Not Every Robin = Spring and Not Every Story About Moving Away from the Dollar Is Well Founded
A small illustration of why some of the stories about reducing dollar dependence are misguided.
Read more...Where’s the Contagion from the Crypto Implosion?
Why, if you aren’t in crypto, you can watch the meltdown in comparative comfort.
Read more...Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Were Up to No Good, Including Their Customer Agreement
In the unlikely event you have any doubt, Sam Bankman-Fried and his merry band of FTX rogues look mighty dishonest.
Read more...Debunking the Petrodollar Myth: Pricing Oil in Dollars Is Just a Convention
The term petrodollar has come to have talismanic value. Time to instill some reality.
Read more...Collateral Damage From Higher Interest Rates
Why to be wary of Larry Summers selling another Volcker-type “kill the economy to save it” interest rate jihad.
Read more...Could the Ukraine Conflict Be an Opportunity for the Global South?
Many countries see the Russia challenge to Western economic dominance as an opportunity to rewrite the rules of global trade in their favor.
Read more...Stop Worshiping Central Banks
Preoccupied with ‘credibility’ and reputations, central banks are again driving the world into recession, financial turmoil and debt crises.
Read more...Satyajit Das: A Disordered World – Part 2: Susceptibilities
Satyajit Das continues his tour of the breakup of the world order, here focusing on financial/economic dislocations and dysfunctional elites
Read more...Sunak Has Been Set Up To Fail and the Likelihood Is That He Will
Rishi Sunak has a Mission Impossible even before getting to his bad impulses. Most countries in the West face the same long list of problems
Read more...In Just 44 Days, Liz Truss Has Made the UK Immeasurably Worse
Truss’ legacy will be one of a tanking pound, soaring inflation, and a seemingly inevitably recession.
Read more...Brussels Provides Not-So-Subtle Input on Italy’s Next Government
By Conor Gallagher While incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy Party (Fdl) certainly provide plenty of nationalist and culture war sound bites, they will ultimately be forced to follow EU and NATO marching orders, or they won’t be in power very long. Now that two cabinet picks from Meloni and […]
Read more...Is the UK About to Hit the Wall?
The UK is in sorry shape…..and is looking like the canary in the economic coal mine.
Read more...Washington, Brussels Set Sights on TurkStream Pipeline Amid Crackdown on Ankara-Moscow Cooperation
By Conor Gallagher At the beginning of this year there were four pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Europe, and a fifth (Nord Stream 2) was about to come online. Now Nord Stream 1 and 2 are dead, the Yamal Pipeline is closed, and the amount of gas flowing through Ukraine is greatly diminished. […]
Read more...